Apologies…

December 16th, 2008 by Brandon Allen

If you’ve ever used a computer (if you’re reading this that’s obviously you), you know that sometimes they just don’t work right, and things go wrong. Well, as it turns out, the Genesis Church website is not immune to that phenomenon, and that’s where our apologies come in.

If you tried to visit the magic that is the Genesis Church website anytime between approximately 4pm, Sunday, December 14th, and 4pm Monday, December 15th, you noticed that you couldn’t view the site. This our first apology, and we’re sorry :(. This was due to some problems our web host, DreamHost, was having. Although, inconvenient, there’s not much we can complain about. We’ve had very few problems with them, and you can’t really beat their price… free, gratis, $0. They have, generously, offered free hosting to us for as long as they are a company, due to our non-profit status. As Genesis Church grows, and our budget permits, we will find some sort of upgraded solution to run our website. Until that time, we will graciously accept the gift we’ve been given.

The second apology is this. If you visited the blog, or maybe you’ve subscribed to the blog feed via feed reader or email, you may have noticed some weird blog posts. Don’t worry… the site wasn’t hacked. I had noticed a problem with our blog for sometime, I just never got around to fixing it, because it meant a lot of troubleshooting. Our website problems created the need to poke around and make sure everything was back up and running properly, so I took the opportunity to fix some things while I was at it. Without totally geeking out on you with all the details, I’ll just say that because of the nature of the problem, the only way to diagnose, test, and fix, was to do things on a live site. This required me to make some blog posts that really had nothing to do about anything, and may have looked a little suspect. I did my best to minimize the spread of these posts, but some may have slipped through the cracks, and for that we apologize. The problem has been fixed, so you shouldn’t be seeing any more weird posts coming across the wire.

Finally, since we’re talking about the website, I’d like to take the chance to let you know that we’re about to start work on a new site design. While some would argue (A List Apart: Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign), and I would agree, that you should never redesign a site just because you’ve had a particular design for a while. However, we have had our current design for nearly two years now, and it’s time for a refresh. Our current design has served us well, but it has it’s downfalls, so a realignment is in order. The Genesis Church website has grown, and the church as a whole has grown. This is all fantastic news. Unfortunately, our current site design has begun to feel a little tight in the waist, so it’s time to get a new pair of pants. This new pair of pants will not only look better, but it will also allow an increase in utility. We need a new way to present content to you. Content we feel is important for you to see, but can, at times, be difficult to locate. If you have any suggestions, feature requests, or comments pertaining to the new design, please feel free to comment below, or conact one of the staff. You may also contact me at [webmaster at genesiseureka dot com], with any thoughts. All ideas will be considered, but not all can, or will, be included.